Marine Mammals & Birds

A collection of Raincoast’s published scientific papers, abstracts, and conference proceedings regarding marine mammals and birds of British Columbia. Many of these studies are based on our 5 years of line transect marine surveys in the Queen Charlotte Basin.

The endangered Southern Resident killer whales (SRKWs) that inhabit the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States are balancing on a knife-edge. New research conducted by an international team of renowned scientists representing academic and conservation organizations in three countries…

Building on Raincoast’s five years spent surveying marine mammals on the BC coast, a new approach to linking environmental conditions with marine mammal densities has identified hotspots of marine mammal biodiversity…

Using BC as a case study, this paper develops a framework for examining risk to oil spills faced by marine mammals. We found that in BC, killer whales (residents and transients), sea otters, and Steller sea lions face the greatest risk of population level consequences, but that many BC marine mammals are at elevated risk…

Williams, R. and L. Thomas. 2007. Distribution and abundance of marine mammals in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management. 9(1):15-28 Marine mammal abundance paper.pdf